Drive brand awareness through marketing partnerships

It is very common that community relations are associated with corporate social responsibility, philanthropic efforts and donations. However, there is an additional mechanism that complements these efforts, such as sponsorshipS. Let's start with defining sponsorship as a partnership in which two parties (sponsor and applicant) benefit. While a donation only benefits the party requesting support and the donor does not receive benefits in return of its investment. The use of granting sponsorships to establish relationships with the community may involve a little more effort because it represents a process of negotiating benefits for both parties.

Why make some efforts? Because the benefits of a sponsorship helps strength the identity of the brand and promotes interaction with the public in a different ways. There are also several additional benefits indirectly obtained by strategically choosing sponsorships.

1. Big impact Taking in consideration, that within a community are different needs and the sponsorship budget to support them all can easily reduce the value of each supported cause, it will help the corporation to establish a specific cause with which the brand interests to associate with. Choosing a one long-term cause, it is more likely to create big changes in the community for the next three to ten years

2. Serve as a filter Another indirect benefit of choosing strategic sponsorships is that it serves as a filter for requests that are not linked to the brand’s identity, corporate culture and reputation. In the extent that all corporates’ community relations efforts are identified with specific causes, applicants will recognize which brands or corporations work best for their properties and add value to the partnership.

3. Efficiency Likewise, sponsoring special events turns out to be efficient for corporations with small communication departments, that has limited resources and are focused on daily efforts. The results of this partnership will most likely bring a relief for the company employees and an increment on the return on investment (ROI); since the owner of the sponsored property is responsible for producing the event and the corporations’ influence at the production of it will depend on the sponsorship level or the negotiated benefits.

4. Brand projection Most of the properties have an advertising opportunities where they place the sponsors logos at their digital media outlets and other outlets. This helps the corporation or the brand to sublimely communicate to the public the causes with which you are compromised. Meanwhile, sponsoring events offers an opportunity for the corporations to interact with their market by inserting themselves in the properties activities and offering an experience to their clients.

By strategically choosing sponsorships, the negotiation process is more focused and the benefits are more linked to the brands or corporations objectives. Once the partnership is a done deal, its recommended to invest significant time in planning, production and monitoring results. The whole process will help evaluate sponsoring the property further on and the magnitude of the investment.

About the author: Cristina Martínez is experienced in corporate social responsibility management, who specializes in partnership negotiations and communications strategies. To contact Cristina write to theprvenue@gmail.com

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